Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr Read Online Free PDF Page B

Maud’s own death fourteen years later. 2 Here Katherine and her brother and sister began their education, under the supervision of their mother but with considerable input from two people who were to play important roles in Katherine’s development. For, though fatherless, Katherine and her younger siblings were by no means deprived of male influence: Maud, very much a woman of her day, understood well the importance of male protection and involvement in her children’s lives. She was fortunate to be able to call upon her late husband’s brother, Sir William Parr of Horton, and Cuthbert Tunstall, a distant Parr kinsman who was to become one of the most prominent churchmen and diplomats of the first half of the sixteenth century. Together, they provided a powerful further resource, far beyond what Maud’s own role at court could bring, for the future of her family.
    Katherine’s uncle had, like her father, flourished under the care of Sir Nicholas Vaux. His ties to Northamptonshire remained close throughout his life and were strengthened by his marriage (several years before that of Thomas and Maud Parr) to Mary Salisbury, daughter of a local landowner. Mary brought as part of her dowry the manor of Horton, and William Parr styled himself accordingly. It was a happy marriage that produced four daughters, and so Katherine Parr grew up in the company of her cousins, especially the eldest girl, Maud, who shared her lessons and was to become a lifelong friend and confidante. Combining the education of the children was no doubt appealing for bothfamily and financial reasons, and the younger generation of Parrs were joined by another cousin, Elizabeth Cheyney, in their studies. 3
    William Parr of Horton was of more military bent than his brother and had fought with distinction in both France (where he was knighted by Henry VIII in Tournai Cathedral the year after Katherine’s birth) and in Scotland. But he was less adept as a courtier and politician. Though he came to recognize that valour was admired but seldom rewarded by financial gain, he does not ever seem to have been comfortable in court circles. His lack of finesse would not have been well received there. Insecure in developing relationships with others in an atmosphere where everyone was jockeying to be noticed, he nevertheless accompanied the king at the celebrated ‘Field of Cloth of Gold’ in northern France in 1520. His awkwardness was compounded by incompetence in handling his own financial affairs. This may have been exacerbated by the additional responsibilities he took on in assisting his sister-in-law, for while Maud managed her estates in the south of England, William Parr dealt with her lands in the north.
    As a family man, however, he seems to have been held in genuine affection. Katherine Parr wrote a dedication to him in her father’s Latin Book of Hours , used by the Parr children as a Latin primer, which shows that he was an important presence in her life as a child: ‘Uncle, when you do on this look, I pray you remember who wrote this in your book. Your loving niece, Katheryn Parr.’ 4 The rhyme may be rudimentary, but the sentiment is clear, and the bond between uncle and niece was to last for the rest of William Parr’s life.
    The precise nature of Cuthbert Tunstall’s influence is harder to determine, but Maud Parr herself acknowledged that she consulted him on matters relating to her children and that she valued his advice greatly. The extent of their contact can perhaps be gauged by the fact that she made him the chief executor of her will and left him a ring with a large ruby. Sir William Parr ofHorton was the anchor of Maud’s fatherless family, but Cuthbert Tunstall, archdeacon of Chester when Katherine’s father died, was an international figure, a prominent humanist, churchman, educator and diplomat who was to become one of the great survivors of sixteenth-century England. Maud could not have imagined, when she made her will in